


A Far Cry From Nothing

by whateverhappens



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (sort of), Angst, Bullying, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, First Kiss, Islamophobia, Post-Episode: s11e08 The Witchfinders, Racism, these two are just soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverhappens/pseuds/whateverhappens
Summary: The Doctor looks up at her, surprise and a touch of embarrassment written on her face, as if she’s just realized she isn’t the only one in the room. “Look at me,” she says sheepishly. “I’m sat here sulking as if this is the worst of it.”After their return from the 17th century, Yaz finds solace in the words she's carried with her for years, and the familiar voice behind them.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 14
Kudos: 56





	A Far Cry From Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a long time since I posted a thasmin fic, but I've been missing these two lately and recently found a fic I wrote around this time last year. It was originally the beginning of next chapter for The Ones We Find (which I'm not sure if I'll ever get around to finishing, but who's to say).

“Here.” Yaz settles on the floor beside the Doctor, placing a steaming mug in front of her. “A cuppa should help warm you up.”

“Thanks, Yaz,” the Doctor says, defeated. Silence falls between them after that, but it’s the comfortable kind, asking for nothing in return and mingling with the gently crackling fire burning in front of them.

They’re in the library, which is a room the TARDIS has, apparently. Yaz only just learned of it as the Doctor guided her through twisting corridors upon their return from the 17th century. She’s never been this far into the ship before, and she’s certain Graham and Ryan haven’t either. The room isn’t the vast and lavish display she’d expected. It’s small and quaint, dimly lit by candles and oil lamps, with uneven rows of tattered books lining the walls. There is proper, solid wood beneath the edge of the crimson rug they sit on. It feels special, almost like a time capsule tucked away in a lonely corner of the ship.

The Doctor slouches underneath several quilts, only slipping her hands out to reach for the tea. Warm light flickers on her skin as she takes a sip and hums in appreciation.

“Added some cinnamon to it,” Yaz says after taking a sip of her own. “Something my mum used to do back when I had a bad day at school . . . which was most days.”

A corner of the Doctor’s lip twitches into a smile, just for a second, and then it falls. 

They’ve been on a few adventures since the Punjab, each a little different but all following the same sort of rhythm. Monsters wearing different faces. Victories with losses in between. Grey areas and deaths that linger as a permanent lump in Yaz’s throat—the kind she knows she’ll never get used to. The kind she doesn’t ever _want_ to get used to. Because what happens when all of that becomes second nature to someone? 

_The Doctor_ , she’s learning. That’s what happens.

She can tell this life is one the Doctor has lived for quite some time. Yaz can feel it on her skin, rough fingertips calloused from the hours of work she busies herself with. She can see it in her eyes too. The way they mute and fall every so often when she thinks no one is looking. Sometimes even when she knows they are. 

Their most recent adventure had been different, though. It’s not uncommon for the Doctor to become a target to the foes they confront. That is, in fact, painfully common. But something had snapped inside of her this time—almost like she finally put on her glasses and read the fine print of being who she is now. There’s more to consider, the Doctor is realizing, than simple matters of pockets and the like. There are obstructing forces that extend far beyond her control, baring their teeth and snarling over her words. 

This is what it means now, to be _her._ Patronized. Silenced. And, in 17th century Lancashire, tethered to a tree and plunged into a river. Tried as a witch at the command of an ignorant king.

It’s all so clear now. And ridiculous. And _wrong._

“Want to talk about it?” Yaz asks softly. The sincerity in her voice is almost warm enough to thaw the Doctor’s growing numbness.   
  
Almost.  
  
She meets Yaz’s gaze, shaking her head slowly as she breathes an empty laugh. 

“You humans,” she mumbles, almost in disbelief. “You make it so hard. So much harder than it needs to be.”

“Make what harder?” Yaz has a feeling she already knows, but that’s not the point.  
  
“Existing,” the Doctor explains, her words taut with frustration. “As if it isn’t exhausting enough on its own, you lot have to go and make up all these silly little rules for it. Who’s allowed to do what, and when, and how. Like there’s only one right way and anyone who does it differently is wrong and less than because of it.” 

“Yeah,” Yaz admits with a crushed sigh. “We’re pretty good at that, aren’t we?” 

“Thirty six women, in one small village, in one tiny pocket of time. _Thirty six._ Dead. For no good reason.” The Doctor’s eyes fall down to her mug, chasing the swirling flames reflected in the white glaze. “There’s never a good reason,” she murmurs.

“Never,” Yaz agrees. “I’ll never understand it. How people can know they’re hurting someone and decide to keep doing it anyway . . .”

The Doctor looks up at her, surprise and a touch of embarrassment written on her face, as if she’s just realized she isn’t the only one in the room. “Look at me,” she says sheepishly. “I’m sat here sulking as if this is the worst of it.” 

Yaz stays quiet, like the words haven’t even reached her, but the Doctor watches intently as her body does the talking. Her jaw flickers ever so slightly and her breathing begins sounding more like a chore. Social cues don’t come naturally to her this time around, but the Doctor finds that Yasmin Khan is a language she can understand almost innately.

“I’m so sorry about Izzy,” she whispers. “I had no idea.”

Yaz’s chest tightens as she forces down a trembling breath. “Don’t like to talk about it much.” She shrugs, trying her best to keep everything in. “It was the worst year of my life. She made me believe so many awful things about myself. Made me feel like nothing.”

“You’re a far cry from nothing, Yaz,” the Doctor insists, hazel eyes beaming as if they reflect the whole of the universe in them.

Black curls mask Yaz’s face as she looks down at the floor and traces a finger over the amber lit grain of the wood. Only part of her is still in the room, the other part tangled up in bitter memories. “Tell that to the little muslim girl with ‘terrorist’ carved into her notebooks,” she says in a small voice. The words might as well be a rock crashing through a mirror; there are no tears, but everything seems to shatter. 

Without hesitation, the Doctor slides close, leaving no room between them. She sheds half of her quilts and drapes them tenderly over Yaz, keeping one arm wrapped around her while the other guides her sunken head to rest on her shoulder.

“I’ve got all of time and space in arm's reach,” the Doctor whispers, “maybe I will.”

Yaz cracks a smile and relaxes, letting her body sink into the embrace as she rests her hand on the Doctor’s thigh. Without any forethought, the Doctor dips her head down and feels the soft silk of Yaz’s hair against her lips. It’s like diving into a jar of honey glimmering in the afternoon sun, and it’s in that moment the Doctor knows with certainty that Yasmin Khan will linger on her skin until the end of time itself.

Neither of them say anything, but neither of them feel like they need to. They sit wordlessly, drinking in the comfort of each other’s presence as they so often do. The kiss is quick and gentle, quiet in a way that makes it feel like something that happens all the time. It seems almost like an instinct, but there’s a newness to it—one that plunges Yaz into a pool of rippling warmth and makes her heart stutter. It’s special, she thinks, to have an anchor in the wake of everything else that is. 

If only existing outside of these timeworn walls were just as easy.

* * *

Yaz finds herself cozied up on her bedroom floor with an old shoebox later that night. She’d unearthed it from the clutter beneath her bed after deciding to give her room a long overdue cleaning. The box is blanketed in brown craft paper decorated with hand-drawn stars of every color, though she’s always favored the purple ones. The corners have dented over the years and edges of the paper are now frayed, but everything that matters on the inside is still there.

The box is brimming with memories. Yaz stumbles into so many pieces of herself she’d forgotten about over the years. Photos from her football days in primary, filled with wide grins and missing teeth. A friendship bracelet her friend, Aisha, had made on their school camping trip. Even one of the daisies Danny had picked for her during their first of many strolls in Endcliffe Park together. And then, at the very bottom, she finds a message scribbled on a ripped piece of notebook paper. The blue lines have since faded, but the words still look as fresh and crisp as the day she found it.

There had been a small electrical fire that day. The entire school lost power, forcing the students and faculty to evacuate with no time to pack up. They waited out in the parking lot for about an hour before learning that they wouldn’t be allowed back in until the following day. 

Yaz found all of her belongings sitting exactly as she had left them the day before, with the exception of a tiny shred of paper sticking out of her maths notebook. It was tucked behind a page marked up with an assortment of ugly names that had been hurled at her one too many times before, but in her night away, the names had been firmly—and mysteriously—crossed out.

She never did figure out who was behind it. No student in that school offered her any semblance of kindness with Izzy around, so she’s always chalked it up to having been done by a teacher or janitor that took pity on her. That note was the first flicker of light she’d seen in a long time. Desperate to cling to it, Yaz started a collection of anything that twinkled and made her feel lighter. Her little box of stars, she called it, and she held them close for a very long time. Even after she was rid of Izzy, they continued to bring her endless comfort and warmth. Those stars were her anchor. They still are. 

Though she now sits alone in her room, Yaz feels anything but as she raises the note and studies the loosely scrawled letters once more. The handwriting is sloppy, like the words had been jotted in a hurry. The message itself has never translated as careless, though. In fact, those words have nestled into her chest as some of the most sincere words ever spoken to her:

_There’s more than this._

_You’re more than this._

With one corner of her lips curled into a smile, Yaz runs her thumb over the letters, now realizing that the stranger behind them is actually no stranger at all, but a friend still making their way. An extraordinary sight she’d yet to behold. An entire universe longing to be discovered.

Yaz reads the message over and over, feeling more renewed than she ever has since the day she found it. The words settle further into her chest, nestling deep into the dusty chambers of her heart and warming her from the inside out. Except she can hear a voice with them now, one she knows will echo through her mind long after these stars have found their place back underneath her bed. It’s okay, though, she doesn’t find herself needing them nowadays anyway. The real ones are much brighter, exceptionally warmer, and more stunning than she ever could have dreamed. 

And for the first time, Yaz is glad she stuck around to see them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed! I found this to be oddly fitting with what we know about Yaz post s12, so I'd love to hear what you thought.
> 
> Hope you all are doing well in the midst of everything going on in the world. Stay safe <3


End file.
